Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/58

to his grandfather's ‘Papers of a Critic.’ He disposed of his share in 1831, but contributed for several years afterwards. His last independent work was a not very brilliant farce, entitled ‘Confounded Foreigners’ (1838, printed in Webster's ‘Acting National Drama,’ vol. iii.). Somewhere near this time Reynolds withdrew from London to the Isle of Wight, where he became clerk to the county court, and where he spent the remainder of his days, dying at Node Hill, Newport, 15 Nov. 1852. He was survived by his sister, Charlotte, who was born on 12 May 1802. Keats's song, ‘Hush, hush, tread softly,’ was composed to a Spanish air played by her on one of many occasions when Keats listened (as he would for hours) to her piano; and she was the heroine of Hood's ‘Number One.’ Charlotte Reynolds died at Hampstead in November 1884 (Athenæum, 1884, ii. 770).

Reynolds had always been distinguished by sarcastic wit, and is represented as becoming cynical and discontented in his latter years. ‘The law,’ says a writer in the ‘Athenæum,’ ‘spoiled his literature, and his love of literature and society interfered with the drudging duties of the lawyer.’ ‘Reynolds,’ says ‘T. M. T.’ in ‘Notes and Queries’ (2nd ser. vol. ii. 4 Oct. 1856), ‘was a man of genius who wanted the devoted purpose and the sustaining power which are requisite to its development. He wrote fitfully. He was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known, though in late years failing health and failing fortune somewhat soured his temper and sharpened his tongue.’ This is no doubt a just judgment. Reynolds's powers as a narrator, though not contemptible, were unequal to the tragic themes he selected from Boccaccio; but it is difficult to think that the author of the fanciful and graceful ‘Romance of Youth,’ which reveals evident traces of the influence of Shelley, of the finely felt lines on Devon, and of so many excellent songs and sonnets, might not, with something more of Keats's loftiness of aim and unsparing labour, have obtained a highly honourable place among English poets.

A fine photogravure of a portrait of Reynolds by Severn is prefixed to the supplementary volume of Forman's edition of Keats's ‘Works.’

REYNOLDS, Sir JOHN RUSSELL, M.D. (1828–1896), physician, son of John Reynolds, an independent minister, and grandson of Dr. Henry Revell Reynolds [q. v.], was born on 22 May 1828 at Romsey, Hampshire. He received general education from his father, and was educated in his profession at University College, London, where he obtained three gold medals in the medical school. In 1851 he graduated M.B. in the university of London, and obtained a scholarship and gold medal in medicine. In 1852 he took the degree of M.D., and began practice in Leeds. He soon after moved to London, and took a house, 38 Grosvenor Street, in which Dr. Marshall Hall [q. v.] had lived. Hall announced to his patients in a printed circular that Reynolds had succeeded him in practice. Such procedure was contrary to a recognised understanding among physicians, and Hall incurred the censure of the College of Physicians. Reynolds, who was ignorant of Hall's intention, was in no way responsible for the circular, and was in no way involved in the censure. He was duly elected a fellow of the college in 1859. In the same year he was appointed assistant physician to University College Hospital, to which he continued attached throughout life. He had before been, in 1855, assistant physician to the Hospital for Sick Children, and in 1857 assistant physician to the Westminster Hospital. In 1865 he became professor of the principles and practice of medicine at University College, and in 1878 he was appointed physician-in-ordinary to the queen's household. He gained a considerable practice as a physician, and was often consulted in difficult cases of nervous disease. In 1869 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1883 vice-president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He delivered the Lumleian lecture at the College of Physicians in 1867, the Harveian oration in 1884, and was elected president in 1893, on the death of Sir Andrew Clark. He was re-elected in 1894 and 1895, and on 1 Jan. in the latter year was created a baronet. In the winter of 1895–6 he became too ill to offer himself for re-election as president of the College of Physicians. He died at his house in Grosvenor Street, London, after several weeks of illness of a pulmonary congestion, on 29 May 1896. He was married, first, to Miss Ainslie, and, secondly, to Frances, widow of C. J. C. Crespigny, but left no children.

Reynolds devoted himself from an early period to the study of nervous diseases, and in 1854 published an ‘Essay on Vertigo;’ in 1855 ‘Diagnosis of Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Cord, and Nerves,’ as well as ‘Tables for the